THE CONDITION OF Japan, happy to have parts of its territory under military occupation by a protector, anxious to satisfy that state's demands across multiple policy areas, and determined at all costs to avoid offending it, is the phenomenon for which in 2007 I began to use the term “client state.” It is a term I apply to the US-Japan relationship, but is applicable likewise to other US relationships because the truth is that the US does not admit of “equality” in its relations with any state, and that “allies” tend to be appreciated for their servility even if it means becoming known in their own countries as “poodles.” Thus the phenomenon of the zokkoku, the dependent, servile or “Client State” syndrome.

The “client state” is characterized by the fact that submission is deliberately chosen and formal sovereignty is not in question. Independence and democratic responsibility are combined with deliberately chosen submission, such that the relationship is to be described only by oxymoronic terms such as “dependent independence” or “servile sovereignty.” I propose a definition of “Client State” that distinguishes it from other, forms of colonial, conquered, directly dominated, or neo-colonial territory as:

Such a state pays meticulous attention to adopting and pursuing policies that will satisfy its patron, and readily pays whatever price necessary to be sure that the patron not abandon it. As one scholar puts it, “‘servitude’ is no longer just a necessary means but is happily embraced and borne. ‘Spontaneous freedom’ becomes indistinguishable from ‘spontaneous servitude’.”

At that time, my term “Client State” (in Japanese Zokkoku) was a shocking deviation from mainstream Western and academic writing, although I had in fact borrowed the term from former Chief Cabinet Secretary Gotoda Masaharu, a pillar of conservatism. It still seemed shocking because it touched a taboo about the origin and character of the state system. It was grim satisfaction, five years on, to find my thesis confirmed in a best-seller by a senior figure from the Japanese bureaucratic establishment, Magosaki Ukeru, former head of the Intelligence and Analysis Bureau of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.